Reiter and Cummings Win PMTT at Eagle River
Category: press release
Jun 27th, 2007 by OutdoorsFIRST
Modified Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:00 AM
A full field of 125 teams competed in the PMTT – Mercury Marine’s Summer Challenge – on the world renowned Eagle River Chain of Lakes in northeastern Wisconsin. Hosted by the Eagle River Area Chamber of Commerce, this marks the sixth year in a row the PMTT has made this one of the stops on the tournament trail. Known for its exceptional musky fishing and always one of the top producers during each year for the trail, this year was no exception.Under sunny skies with S.W. winds at 5-10 mph and air temps in the low 80’s the muskies put on quite the showing as the anglers boated 43 during the two day event, with eight of them being forty inches or longer. It was really across the board as muskies were caught everywhere and on almost every kind of bait. There really didn’t seem to be any one certain type of pattern going until everyone heard the post tournament interviews with the winners.The team of James Reiter and Ric Cummings both from Vernon Hills, IL caught four muskies, all forty inches or longer, which is half of the eight muskies registered over forty inches by the entire field of 125 teams. While most cast traditional sized muskies baits at weed edges and chased baitfish pods over open water, Reiter & Cummings didn’t. After several days of pre-fishing they decided to downsize their baits and go shallower then most of the rest of the field during the tournament. While fishing on Cranberry Lake by the river that feeds from the Three Lakes Chain, they burned small bass size inline rubber skirted spinners through 2-4 feet of 74 degree water with spotty weeds. This turned out to be the hot pattern as they boated a 40″, 40.25″, 40.50″ & 41.75″ muskies and took home the first place hardware at the Mercury Marine Summer Challenge and a check for over $20,000.Tyler Maney & Ryan bock were the only other team to register four muskies, two at 34″ and two at 35″ as they worked bucktails & jerkbaits on the weed edges. They moved around constantly in search of active fish as they caught all four muskies on four different lakes. Their run and gun technique was good enough for second place honors and a check for $5000.Garth Darton & Jerry Willner both from the Eagle River area, were able to catch two the first day; 34.25″ and 36″ and one 37.25″, the second on perch colored baby Depth Raiders on the deep side of the weed edges in Eagle Lake to land them the third place trophies and a check for $3,600. While John Steckel & Randy Machtan both from Marsfield, WI. boated two muskies with spinnerbaits working the rivers that connected Eagle and Otter lakes along with the big fish of the tournament at 42″ to total $3,000 in their forth place efforts.Rounding out the top five is the team of Matt Polman from the Madison, WI area and Brian Schaffer from Tomahawk, WI. They were successful enough to boat three muskies of 34.25″, 35.50″ & 35.50″ on day one working jerkbaits off the deep weed edges on the southern end of Catfish Lake, but got skunked on day two. For their efforts they took home not the fifth place trophies and the prestigious Ranger Cup Award for an additional $1,000 for the top finishing registered Ranger Boat owner and a grand total of $3,100.Present from Mercury Marine was Kevin Luebke, Manager Freshwater Endorsements. He talked about the long running partnership between the PMTT and Mercury and thanked everyone for running Mercury. Luebke also explained to the folks that Mercury was not only a sponsor of the PMTT but that they support all of musky fishing and are financially committed to making the entire sport of musky fishing bigger and better.Tournament Director Tim Widlacki thanked all of the PMTT’s sponsors, especially Mercury Marine for sponsoring the tournament and the Eagle River Area Chamber of Commerce for hosting the event. In addition Ranger Boats, Farm & City Insurance Services, Musky Hunter Magazine, Heckel’s Marine, Keyes Outdoors Television, Rollie & Helens Musky Shop, Wildlife Energy Drink, Extreme Muskie Expo’s, Crash’s Landing, Morehead Tourism Commission, Village of Antioch & the Antioch Chamber of Commerce and all of the associate and contributing sponsors. Please let these fine folks know that you appreciate their promotional efforts in support of freshwaters most challenging fish; and those extreme anglers who chase her on the first, best and only National Professional Musky Circuit the PMTT! To obtain more information on becoming a member of the 2007 PMTT, results or to view event photo album, please visit them on the Web at www.promusky.com or call the PMTT at: 815-478-4351